In a move that will surely prompt smiles of satisfaction at Apple HQ, Adobe is set to announce the end of Flash for mobile devices.
According to ZDNet, the company has already prepared an announcement which reads:
Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates.
In an email accompanying the announcement, according to ZDNet, Adobe also said that it plans to increase its investment in HTML 5 development.
The move is hardly a surprise. Adobe has struggled for several years to produce a version of Flash for mobile devices that was stable and performed satisfactorily. And Apple has never supported it in iOS. In the words of Steve Jobs, in his Thoughts on Flash, published on Apple’s website last year: ‘We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it.’
Jobs added that: ‘the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.’
It seems now, that Adobe agrees.
